


Stitches

by CynicalRainbows



Series: Bessie & Catalina Foster AU [1]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Family Fluff, Foster AU, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25648717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynicalRainbows/pseuds/CynicalRainbows
Summary: Bessie is not used to people caring about her.(AU in which a young Bessie is fostered by Catalina.)
Relationships: Catherine of Aragon & Elizabeth "Bessie" Blount
Series: Bessie & Catalina Foster AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859428
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> This is such a silly concept and half the credit goes to @not_bess1e_b4ss_on_the_b4ss, not only for the original concept but for coming up with the idea that Tour Bessie owns a small pet Highland heifer named Hyde (reduced sadly to a stuffed animal in this fic.)  
> Comments appreciated as always!

She’s never been one to cry easily. It’s not out of toughness- tears just don’t come easily to her, even when they should, even when she can TELL someone is getting frustrated with her refusal to just react like a normal kid fergodsake, even when she knows that it’s what they want. Whether they’re someone looking for tears of contrition, or of forgiveness or (and these are the worst, these are the ones who get angriest when she remains sullen and dry-eyed, ironically) the ones who want her to cry as a sign that she’s finally opening up…..they all go disappointed.

Except now she’s crying for real, her throat hurts and her head hurts and her face stings from the salt and she can’t stop and it’s for such a stupid reason too, that’s what makes it even worse.

She never forgets to shut her bedroom door usually- it figures that the one time she gets careless is the one time that Maria actually bothers to drag herself upstairs, the one time that her animal-huntress-instincts seem to have gotten the better of her usual sleepy-lap-cat self.

Whether she was playing at being a leopard or whether this is her cat-way of telling Bessie she isn’t welcome in what used to be just Catalina’s flat…..well, it doesn’t matter.

Hyde is just as shredded either way.

(The fact that she still thinks of her as Hyde- the fact that she’s still thinking of this pile-of-fur-and-stuffing as her at all- is ridiculous and she knows it. Why can’t she just grow up?)

If she was a proper person, she’d just shrug it off, she knows. Move on. Get a snack, watch tv.

Even if she was still a bit sad about it- well that wouldn’t be unreasonable. But she’d still be able to get things in perspective, to reflect that a shredded soft toy arguably a very, very light price to pay for the fact that she now gets to live with someone who doesn’t say her name as if they’re trying it out for size, who doesn’t coach everything in false smiles, who actually remembers things like her hatered of tomoatoes and her preference for burnt toast, who asks her opinion as if it matters.

She is grateful for these things- she is, she is- but obviously she isn’t grateful enough because she can’t stop the sick emptiness inside, she can’t push away the sudden feeling of being very, very alone and very very small.

She can’t rationalise and she can’t reason, she can’t even clear up the mess of fabric from her usually scrupulously clean carpet. Instead she just sits puddled on the carpet and holds a piece of Hyde’s fur to her face and sobs the way she’s seen kids cry on their first day as a Kid In The System.

It’s ridiculous. She’s ridiculous.

(No wonder nobody ever wanted her until now.)

*

She can’t bring herself to throw the pieces of Hyde away but she can’t leave the mess either so she nudges them under her bed.

That’s all she can do for now.

*

When Catalina comes home from work, she’s gotten as far as dragging herself down to the living room (no one likes a reclusive teenager, she knows that already, so she does her best not to be one) and she’s washed her face in water cold enough that most of the redness has gone from her cheeks. She makes a decent attempt at sounding normal (she thinks).

Clearly though, she isn’t doing a good enough job: she’s just thinking she’s gotten away without Catalina picking up on anything amiss when Catalina takes the last of the freshly-dried dishes from her hands and asks her if she’s ok.

She freezes.

She’s already prepared some answers (Fine. Tired. Homework.) but they fly from her head for a moment and she just stares at the woman, not saying anything.

Catalina is one of the more patient ones (she’s stopped- just about- being scared that Catalina will get cross at her not answering fast enough) but annoyingly, she’s also one of the more persistent ones.

‘Bessie? Are you ok?’

‘Fine.’

Her mouth is dry and she’s angry at herself. Here she is- at the best placement she’s ever had- and she’s ruining it, just as she always does. Sometimes it’s her moods and sometimes it’s her nightmares and sometimes it’s just her being a bit too weird.

‘You look so worried, querida.’

She hates the concern in Catalina’s face. If Catalina knew that she was moping over a stupid stuffed animal…. The thought makes her feel a bit sick.

‘I’m okay. Tired.’

She hates the thought of Catalina looking at her in that way they all have- half pitying, half mocking (‘Don’t you think you’re a bit old to be so childish, Elizabeth?’ ‘Don’t you think you should grow up a bit?’), which soon resolves itself into weary resignation (‘Of course, they’re all like this really- they all have these issues-’).

She’s determined not to drive Catalina away like she has done everyone else- she can be normal, she can be adjusted, she can- but even as she’s thinking it, something in Catalina’s voice, in the warmth of her hand on her arm (not gripping her, not pulling her, just….there) makes her have to blink hard and bite her lip.

‘Bessie- please talk to me, what is it?’

She shakes her head. She can taste blood.

Why is she like this? Why is she so pathetic?

Catalina still doesn’t look annoyed though- she doesn’t look as if she’s getting tired of trying, as if she’s edging into one of those ‘I don’t know why I even bother-’ sighs. Instead, she just wraps an arm around Bessie’s shaking shoulders and walks her into the living room.

‘Just one of those days?’

It’s a question she can answer by nodding (it’s an answer that will hopefully cut off the possibility for more) so she nods once and allows Catalina to gently pull her down to sit on the sofa.

‘You poor thing.’ She finds the tv remote and flips through the channels. ‘In that case, I reccomend a cup of hot chocolate. And some poor quality television.’

There’s a pause, and she feels Catalina draw back the tiniest bit, the way she always does, giving her an out, giving her the chance to escape if she wants to. ‘Of course, if you would prefer some space, that is also completely alright, ok? I could bring you a drink up to your room if you’d like?’ 

(It’s funny- she’s the only one Bessie has ever known to remind her so often that she doesn’t have to stay, that she’s free to go, that she can choose what to do. Funny too that it’s these reminders that she can leave that actually make her want to stay, more than any number of requests to ‘Come sit with us!’ ‘Come join in!’ ever have done. She knows it makes no sense.)

Part of her wants to go back to her room, where she can fall apart in peace and without fear of Catalina seeing….but then she knows if she does go back to her room, she’ll just be faced with having to throw Hyde away properly. So she stays.

She ends up tucked under Catalina’s arm, silent tears dripping silently down her face and soaking into Catalina’s shirt, while a host of women argue over wedding dresses on the screen.

They don’t talk, other than Catalina occasionally murmuring assent or disagreement over the choice of one bride or another.

‘Ooh…bad choice, mija….. She thinks that lace is good idea?’

(When Bessie first came to live with her, she had assumed that Catalina had been watching the reality tv shows in an attempt to bond with her, and that her commentary was the forced, awkward attempt of an adult to connect to a nearly-teenager. She’d hated it. 

Now though, she knows that Catalina will watch the program with or without her, and that her commentary, likewise, will go ahead whether or not Bessie or even Maria is there to hear it, and it’s oddly soothing, as background noise goes.)

Every so often, Catalina will hand her a tissue from the coffee table, or tighten her hold on her, or press a light kiss to the top of her head, but she doesn’t press for answers or intimacy and Bessie is grateful.

Still though, not grateful enough- because she’s still just….sad.

She wonders if this is how people feel when people they love leave- she knows it’s awful of her to think it, to compare the two things…..but still. (Hyde at least has been constant. Hyde has never shouted at her, hit her, locked her into or out of a room. Hyde has never lied to her, broken a promise or feigned anything. Obviously, her capacity to do any of those things is somewhat limited, due to her not actually being real but……still. Hyde at least has never left her.)

After a couple of episodes, Catalina suddenly remembers she needs to put a load of laundry on and excuses herself (‘I’ll be right back, querida; I’ll make the hot chocolate after I’ve put it on-’) and…..Bessie waits.

And waits.

And when she realises that Catalina has been gone for far, far longer than it would take someone to put a load of laundry on, she feels- after the familiar first sudden sick sinking feeling- a distinct lack of surprise.

Of course she got tired of her.

(They all do, in the end.)

She wonders if the drawing away will happen all at once (like it does sometimes) or if it will be more slow (like it is othertimes). 

She doesn’t know.

But it is coming- she knows that much.

And now she doesn’t even have Hyde.

On screen, a woman jumps up and down, her face red, arms waving. Bessie can’t even tell if she’s meant to be pleased or not.

Catalina does not come back.

*

After a while, she wonders if she should go to bed- it’s getting late after all.

The hall is dark upstairs- no light under Catalina’s door, maybe she’s already asleep (making it her first night in Catalina’s home without being wished sweet dreams)- but lightness from her own room.

Which is funny because she’s sure she turned the light off….

Catalina is sat on the edge of her bed, and she jumps, guiltily, when Bessie enters.

‘Oh! Querida, you startled me-’

Oh god.

Bessie has had people go through her stuff before but the fact that it’s happening so fast….it just hits her hard.

Was her mood really so noticeably bad that Catalina thinks she’s hiding something?

She wouldn’t be the first to suppose drugs or boys or boys-with-drugs….and she wouldn’t be the first to go actively searching for evidence….. Bessie’s stomach clenches into a tight fist.

‘I’m sorry-’

‘-I think we need to have a talk-’

They speak almost at exactly the same time but she knows what she’s heard- she’s heard the same words before out of the mouths of so many people. She knows what’s to come. She just hopes she can keep herself together throughout it- it’s always been so much harder when she breaks too quickly, there’s something vaguely repulsive about being begged for another chance, she knows (and it never changed their minds).

(She won’t beg.)

‘Ok.’

‘Sit down.’

She sits.

‘Querida…there’s no easy way to say this…’ She bites her lip in anticipation, steels herself.

‘And I’m so sorry it’s come to this-’

Here it comes: ‘Just not working out….better for us all….fresh start…..’

‘-but I must have completely forgotten to shut your door this morning-’

Ok. This is not what she expected.

‘-and Maria…. Well, decided to take against your things, for some reason-’

Catalina takes a breath and takes what she had been holding from where she’d pushed it under Bessie’s pillow.

Not her diary after all, like she’d assumed. 

Hyde.

But not Hyde as she’d last seen her- she looks the same as always, as if nothing has happened at all.

‘I’m so sorry querida- I thought I’d have finished before you came up, when I first found her but I lost track of time….’

She grabs Hyde from Catalina’s unresisting hands and studies her: up close she can see the lines of tiny stitches, she can see where the scraps of fur have been patched together and patiently, bit by bit, restuffed.

There are still a couple of seams left to do but- there’s no doubt about it- she’s pretty much finished.

‘You- fixed her-’

‘I tried to- I’m so sorry, I don’t know what got into Maria to make her go so wild-’

Catalina looks so apologetic and it’s just….strange to see.

She’d have expected a brush off, perhaps a scolding for being careless enough to leave her door open, perhaps a chiding for being childish enough to even care since she’s nearly a teenager, she’s nearly an adult, or close enough-

The idea of Catalina frantically sewing in order to fix a stupid stuffed animal- even trying to do it quickly like it was a big priority, something important- makes her throat feel tight all over again.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do a better job of it darling-’

Catalina’s words barely register- she holds Hyde against her face and tries to breathe normally: she’s slightly lumpier than usual but she still smells the same and oh god, the sudden lifting of the darkness that had settled upon her is enough to make her feel limp with relief.

She leans against Catalina’s shoulder and sighs shakily.

‘I’m- you-’ She can’t find the words for what she wants to say- she can’t express it all properly and she isn’t even sure that she wants to- but she grips Catalina’s arm fiercely and clutches Hyde against her chest with her free hand. ‘You fixed her-’

She feels almost dizzy- as if she’s just felt too much in the last few hours. It’s exhausting- and she can’t explain that either, not to Catalina (who she is sure is probably wondering why Bessie hasn’t even said a proper thank you, is probably secretly still thinking she’s too old to make such a fuss over something so silly, is probably thinking twice about- It’s an effort to shut down the spiral but she does, just about. Catalina’s warm, solid presence next to her helps.

‘Of course.’ She says it so easily, but not as if she’s upset with Bessie for doubting her. ‘I promise, I’ll always try to help if I can. With anything.’

It’s a promise she’s heard a variation of many times before….but never when accompanied with actual sewn-together proof of the truth of the words.

She can’t explain that either, why it means so much to hear it now, why it’s making her cry all over again as if she hasn’t already been pathetic enough for one day….but perhaps Catalina understands a little bit anyway: her other arm goes around Bessie’s shoulders, her hand gently rubs circles against her forearm.

‘Ok. It’s ok. Everything is alright, sweetheart.’

Catalina sounds so very sure; Bessie lets her eyes drift shut for a moment, focusing on her voice, on her touch.

‘Everything is alright.’

Perhaps it will be, after all.


End file.
